You’ll have to take my word that it was 32C just before I took that picture; it was beautiful at the weekend when summer made a late but heartfelt appearance. It was also a brief appearance, sadly, and apparently we’re in for a “soggy” bank holiday weekend.

That’s much more what we’re used to. Also more in the normal run of things was this lot:

It’s so easy. Preheat oven to 180C and grease and line two loose-bottomed sandwich tins then… chuck everything in a bowl and attack with an electric mixer till smooth and delicious-looking. Pour into the tins, level the tops and bake for 20 minutes, till the cakes are starting to shrink from the edges of the tins and an inserted skewer comes out clean.

I filled it with vanilla buttercream and topped with this icing and it went down well. I did make about £18 profit from the boot fair but as I was there from 9am-ish until 1pm-ish, it ain’t exactly a great rate of pay :-)

I also made these, that weekend:

My friend and I had a bet, agreeing that if I lost, I’d make her some flapjacks and if she lost, she’d give me a lunge lesson on her horse (very good for seat and leg position). We then decided just to do both anyway – and making flapjacks is no punishment, after all :-)

Plus one more thing.

My colleague Adam is leaving and as he’s off this week and I’m off next, it was my last day working with him last Friday. He was one of the loudest in praise of the cornflake cakes I took in a while ago; his only complaint being that they were too small. He jokingly suggested using a whole box-worth of cornflakes at once and as my lovely mum had seen my previous post on the subject and bought me a 400g bar of Dairy Milk, which I can’t eat as it’s a “may contain gluten”…

I used the whole thing and although it wasn’t quite a box-worth, it was a serious slab of chocolatey cornflakey joy… he loved it and all I can say is, it’s a good thing I couldn’t eat it, as I don’t think he’d have had much of it otherwise.

All of that baking looks amazing! Your work mates are lucky indeed! It wasn’t quite so hot up north but it was good to experience more summer weather however briefly. I have to say I’m starting to feel those autumn vibes already, cooler and darker mornings – but you never know, last year we had some great weather in September and October so fingers crossed!

I’ll send you one for your birthday; after all, it was your comment that inspired me to make them – I’d forgotten how gobsmakingly delicious they are!
And although you’ll never catch me saying it’s too hot, it was very sweaty and humid here on Sunday – raining and cold again today though…

That chocolate icing is the most amazingly addictive substance known to man, in my opinion… you heat the ingredients to make it, ending up with a warm, thick concoction of deliciousness – so, so hard to resist :-)

Oooh so much baking! All looks amazing. Your cakes always seem to come out so well. I’m so rubbish at baking. I’m better at just throwing ingredients together while cooking, whereas I guess baking is more of a science…chocolate crispy cakes are the best. Satisfyingly crunchy :)